The instant invention relates generally to asset management systems and, in particular, to an industrial plant asset management system including a unified display environment and a common database structure for protecting and managing industrial plant assets including a multifarious grouping of machinery and processes.
Currently, industrial plants employ a multiplicity of xe2x80x9cstand-alonexe2x80x9d systems that include multiple computers, operating systems, applications and networks for accomplishing the same basic problem: protecting and managing plant assets. This methodology of employing one system for large critical machines another for general purpose machines, one for off-line another for on-line, one for vibration, another for oil analysis, et cetera, is in the least undesirable, and has led to significant costs in purchasing and maintaining these assorted systems. For example, high capital, integration, system maintenance, and training costs are but a few of the significant costs associated with these multiple xe2x80x9cstand-alonexe2x80x9d systems.
Integrating a multiplicity of different systems is still less than ideal because of the costs associated with performing the integration, training users on multiple systems, and maintaining multiple software packages. Adding to the integration costs are the significant costs associated with engineering and sustaining these multiple software packages. Training sales and service people on all of these multiple software packages also augments costs.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need to reduce the number of computers and operating systems required for protecting and managing plant assets in order to lower capital cost and in order to reduce the traditional requirements for both expertise and human resources necessary to integrate and maintain these systems. Additionally, there is a need to reduce system installation cost and to reduce integration and maintenance costs prevalent in traditional prior art systems. Furthermore, there is a need to provide a system that substantially eliminates the need to configure the same device or point in multiple applications thereby resulting in a quick, easy, and less costly configuration.
The instant invention recognizes the shortcomings of the known prior art and is distinguished thereover in a multiplicity of ways. Moreover, the instant invention provides an industrial plant asset system that is revolutionary from both a technology standpoint and from a business standpoint. One of the starkest differentiations that the instant invention enjoys over the known prior art involves the fact that the instant invention is not a stand-alone system that merely manages a single category of machinery nor is it an integrated system that employs multiple systems and software packages for monitoring different categories of machinery. In stark contrast, the instant invention provides a unique system that, inter alia, integrates a host of condition-monitoring devices, technologies and, third party data sources into a single system that addresses all machinery types and modes of data acquisition with a single unified display application and using a common open database. Therefore, the instant invention eliminates the shortcomings of the known prior art by reducing the number of computers and operating systems required for protecting and managing plant assets. Hence, capital costs are lowered and the traditional requirement for both expertise and human resources necessary to integrate and maintain prior systems is reduced. Additionally, the instant invention reduces installation, integration and maintenance costs associated with these prior systems. Moreover, the instant invention provides a system that substantially eliminates the need to configure the same device or point in multiple applications thereby resulting in a quick, easy, and less costly system configuration.
The instant invention integrates, inter alia, on-line continuous management for critical machinery, scanning management of less critical machinery, off-line management of critical machinery and off-line management of less critical machinery into a single system, which includes performance monitoring, and decision support. Furthermore, the system is designed to provide extensive external communication capabilities. These capabilities are not limited to interfaces with other condition monitoring devices and systems, but instead extend to plant control and automation systems. This allows the user to incorporate machinery asset condition information in operational and maintenance systems, and to incorporate many types of information relating to machinery asset conditions, regardless of the source. This capability greatly enhances the effectiveness and value of the system.
As a result, the system is capable of correlating information from multiple sources that allows timely, operational decisions on machinery condition that consider both the machinery and the surrounding process conditions/constraints. Thus, the system provides fewer and less severe failures, better production availability, maintenance cost reductions, and the potential for increased production revenues. This ability is provided by the, instant invention gathering information from multiple information sources within the plant control and automation systems and synchronously integrating the information onto a single unified display environment.
In one preferred form, the instant invention is comprised of a data acquisition module, a display module, a database module, and utility modules. These modules can reside on a single computer or on a plurality of independent computers that interact via a network.
The data acquisition module is in operative communication with a plurality of data acquisition devices for collecting data engendered from a plurality of transducer/sensors strategically placed at locations throughout an enterprise including machine and process measurement points. The data acquisition module processes the collected data and interfaces with and serves data to both the database module and the display module for data storage and real-time data display. Additionally, the data acquisition module may bring in data from distributed control systems (DCSs) and Historians (databases that include historical plant asset information and events).
The display module is in operative communication with the data acquisition module, the database module and the utility modules and includes a unified graphical user interface for viewing data from all of these modules. The graphical user interface is unique in that it, inter alia, provides synchronized multiple views of machine and instrument assets as well as diagnostic data and plot formats required for machinery and process diagnostics.
The database module is in operative communication with the data acquisition module, the display module and the utility modules and includes a historical/machine database and a configuration database. The historical/machine database is employed for storing, inter alia, historical enterprise asset data and collected machine and process data while the configuration database is employed for storing, inter alia, asset configurations including alarm parameters.
The utility modules are in operative communication with the data acquisition module, the database module and the display module and include modules that increase the communications abilities and functionality of the system. One important utility module is a configuration module. The configuration module allows a user to configure, via the unified graphical user interface, an enterprise and associated physical assets including asset monitoring instrumentation, asset transducers/sensors and associated properties including alarming.
Accordingly, a primary object of the instant invention is to provide a new, novel and useful industrial plant asset management system: apparatus and method.
A further object of the instant invention is to provide the industrial plant asset management system as characterized above which includes a unified display environment and a common database structure for protecting and managing industrial plant assets.
Another further object of the instant invention is to provide an industrial plant asset management system as characterized above which is modular in design and based on a client server architecture that allows the user to configure the system as centralized, distributed, or any combination of the two.
Another further object of the instant invention is to provide an industrial plant asset management system as characterized above which includes Local or Wide Area Network (LAN or WAN) support for implementing the system in a manner that takes advantage of existing network structures and philosophy for lowering installation and system maintenance costs.
Another further object of the instant invention is to provide an industrial plant asset management system as characterized above which includes remote access to obtain remote services for troubleshooting both instrument and machinery problems for providing expedited problem resolution and lowered cost of services.
Another further object of the instant invention is to provide the unified display environment as characterized above which includes a machinery management display that provides a unified interface to machine asset and condition information as well as the system""s instrument assets and transducer or sensor assets thereby enabling the user to view the enterprise as a whole and navigate to a specific point or parameter quickly and easily.
Another further object of the instant invention is to provide the unified display environment as characterized above which provides access to machinery and instrument asset information, such as drawings and maintenance records or reports.
Another further object of the instant invention is to provide the unified display environment as characterized above which reduces user-training time and increases effectiveness as its use becomes more intuitive.
Another further object of the instant invention is to provide the unified display environment as characterized above which allows the user to correlate information from multiple applications and sources into a single unified view thereby expediting problem resolution during the diagnostics process.
Another further object of the instant invention is to provide an industrial plant asset management system as characterized above which incorporates multiple condition monitoring technologies as well as on-line and off-line data collection.
Another further object of the instant invention is to provide an industrial plant asset management system as characterized above which includes an open architecture for taking advantage of the many utilities and tools available for today""s operating systems, importing and exporting information using industry standard methods, using application components in third-party systems, and customizing the system to specific needs without the need for complex configuration and integration.
Another further object of the instant invention is to provide an industrial plant asset management system as characterized above which includes parametric alarming in addition to the traditional software alarms of prior art systems thereby allowing the user to set alarms based on different modes of operation, including process conditions.
Another object of the instant invention is to provide parametric alarming as characterized above, for providing the user with the ability to customize system alarms and create simple or very complex alarming schemes.
Another object of the instant invention is to provide parametric alarming as characterized above, which includes generating internal software alarms for an alarm list, for creating exportable alarms for third-party interfaces, and for initiating data collection for machinery monitored on-line.
Yet another further object of the instant invention is to provide an industrial plant asset management system as characterized above which basis maintenance activities on specific alarms, machinery fault identification and information that is ready for use without further interpretation or analysis rather than simply displaying data that requires further interpretation and analysis.
Still yet another further object of the instant invention is to provide an industrial plant asset management system as characterized above which can communicate with portable data collectors for receiving an upload of data therefrom and generating a new route comprised of points from a first route (the uploaded route) which were in alarm.
These and other objects and advantages will be made manifest when considering the following detailed specification when taken in conjunction with the appended drawing figures.